A blow to Shas: The chairman of the Central Elections Committee, Judge Noam Solberg, today (Sunday) ordered the Shas party and its chairman, MK Aryeh Deri, to remove the propaganda video that was launched last night.
In the video, an actor who appears to be a religious soldier walks home on Shabbat Eve, and his family awaits him for Kiddush. At the end of the video, a ballot paper appears with the letters Shas.
Gadi Eisenkot's left-wing Yashar party claimed, among other things, that this was a violation of the ban on using the IDF in election propaganda and the ban on using the letters of a list before the 42nd day before the elections.
The party also requested a temporary order to remove the video until the end of the hearing on the petition.
The chairman of the Central Elections Committee determined that the prospects of the petition regarding the two aforementioned bans justify granting the requested temporary injunction. He ordered Shas and MK Deri to remove the video from all their social media accounts, and to respond to the petition within two days.
He noted that the Election Law prohibits using the IDF in election campaigning in a way that might create the impression that the IDF is identified with a party or a list of candidates.
The law also prohibits election propaganda by using a letter indicating a list of candidates, except during the 42-day period before Election Day.
Shas's response to Judge Solberg's decision: "It is not surprising that Judge Solberg was quick to comply with the Left Party led by Eisenkot and disqualify a Shas video that does not contain any IDF symbol or element. The left constantly spreads propaganda against Shas on the issue of conscription, but when Shas presents the truth - they immediately intervene.
""The legal persecution against the right, the traditionalists, and the religiously observant is no longer surprising. You can delete a video, but you can't delete the hundreds of thousands of families who support Shas.".
